


Three Ways Of Looking At A Collapse

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Interpol
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-13
Updated: 2006-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm





	Three Ways Of Looking At A Collapse

> **Paul:** ... If you're on tour in foreign countries, you got to let it go. "I'm not gonna check my email, I'm not gonna make a phone call, I'm not gonna email." So at that time I was a little green, all these little things were disappointing me everyday, and then I finally just flipped out. That happened to be in Germany.  
> **Carlos:** What, when?  
> **Paul:** It was like, a Paul version of flipping out. I just shut down.  
> **Carlos:** But, where--  
> **Paul:** After the Amsterdam thing, when I got stuck out in the snow and couldn't find the bus? It was like two days after that.  
> **Carlos:** Oh, okay.  
> **Paul:** It was just like a sequence of events where everything went wrong for me.

 

_I'll take you over, there_

 

Somewhere between France and England, Paul let Carlos fuck him. Partly because Carlos had always wanted him, partly because he wanted to see just how _much_ Carlos wanted him. Business before pleasure, but those were his words, not Carlos's, and Carlos hadn't so much as blinked before he grabbed Paul by the scruff of his jeans jacket and dragged him back to their bus, the smirk on his face barely concealed as he shooed everyone out of their way.

And between that moment to the moment that Carlos had stumbled out of his bunk, hours later, Paul still wasn't sure he was going to go through with it.

First real moment of doubt: Carlos asking him, "Have you done this before?" and Paul deliberately obtuse, "Sex? Yeah I should think so," but Carlos being insistent and going, "No, I mean - we could just, we could do anything else. Plenty of things we could do." This with a wide grin, and Paul replied desultorily, "You've done it, I'm sure it's not that hard."

Carlos just said, "Yeah, but it's a lot harder to do it well," and Paul wanted to smack him and kick him out, only Carlos suddenly rocked against him and his hands were _everywhere_ and Paul forgot, at least momentarily, about something Daniel reminded him of later, when he walked in on a half-naked Carlos who had somehow managed to trip on his blankets and fall directly in front of his feet.

Which was a shy, but still succinct, and utterly true, "You guys don't even like one another that much."

But hey, hey, hey, he was lonely and he was bored and he was high and he was drunk and there were a thousand other adjectives he could use, but ultimately it was that, despite Carlos being so full of shit, he'd been right about one thing:

He certainly did it _well_, and this, this Paul had known for a long damned time. His hands callused and assured on Paul's skin, oh god his mouth everywhere, on his skin on his neck on his dick, and his thin, angular body pressing him down on those sheets that were never quite clean enough and the mattress that was hard and hurt his back, on that ridiculous bus that kept breaking down, and there it was, his forgetting just for those few hours that he was Paul fucking Banks and this tour would never end and he'd been on it for what seemed like forever and how he sometimes just couldn't breathe at all, just that everything pushed down so hard, and so. And _so_.

And the next day, Carlos echoing what Paul had finally told Daniel before he escaped, "Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Only Carlos was sheepish, and playing with his hair, and Paul figured that this was one of the times when Jenny and him were back together again, the only period when she expected him to remain faithful, and he never could understand that, that letting go of someone just to have them fuck around and even when they were "on" Carlos couldn't keep it in his pants.

But Carlos had just flushed when Paul said, lazily, not because he cared, "I didn't know. Guess Jenny's going to be pissed, huh?" Because they never lied to one another, or so Carlos had bragged, but this time Carlos just went, "I'm not telling her." Because. And because, Paul was already turning around but he couldn't avoid the soft, "Because it was you."

 

***

 

_This fame thing, I don't get it  
This star thing, I don't get it_

 

And once, when the bus was refueling or whatever it was that they did that generally took much longer than it should, they'd all gotten off it and went into the nearest café for crappy coffee and horrible food but at least it was warm, and Paul returned from the bathroom to find that somehow, Carlos managed to find the one hot girl in the entire place, maybe the entire town, and was attempting to put his not-inconsiderable-if-you-were-brain-dead charms onto her.

Which the girl seemed to be, since she was snuggled in close to him and was giggling at his stupid jokes, and Daniel was staring into his drink and Sam was smoking and looking vaguely amused, and when Paul sat down, _squeezed_ because his seat had been taken over by perky blondeness, Carlos said, "We were just discussing something, Paul. This is Anna, by the way. Say hi, sweetie."

"Hi, Paul," she said, in a voice so heavily accented his name came out like Pol. Pol-pol-Interpol.

Carlos continued, blithely, as if everything in the world was bright and cheery and all around brilliant, "What were we discussing again? I forget," and Paul felt ill. Because the bathroom had no soap and the food he'd eaten was settling heavily in his stomach and the girl was nothing at all like Abby, only for some reason the memory of her was so sharp in his mind he could taste it. Because Carlos was being Carlos, and so he just narrowed his eyes and glared, as Carlos's wide grin slowly faded and he removed his arm from around the girl, shifting slightly, uncomfortably away from her.

Until Sam cleared his throat and said lightly, "So have you heard the one about the drummer and the rabbit he found?" and then Paul looked away and zoned out until Carlos and the girl slid quietly out of the booth and towards the back.

"Sorry," he mumbled later, when they were back on the bus and finally back on the road, "Sorry," he said, and Carlos just scowled and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day and that was how it always went with Carlos and him, par for the course, really, only then they started fucking and everything changed.

Only nothing did, except that he could get drunk and high with Carlos constantly and then they could spend the whole night fucking, Carlos's hand wrapped around his dick, his hand wrapped around Carlos's. Carlos in him, rocking in time with the jerky movement of the bus, stopping when Paul's head hit the back of the bunk, even though Paul couldn't care less if he "got a concussion" as Carlos said worriedly. And: "Stop being such a fucking pussy, Carlos," which was what made Carlos set his teeth but he could never drive in hard enough for it to count.

Blowjobs, sometimes, Christ it had never been like this, even when he thought he'd fallen in love with a girl that broke his heart from the first moment that he laid eyes on her, and his best pal best buddy had said shyly, hands tucked deep into his pockets and face flushed, "Girls kind of suck anyway. We don't need them."

But Paul had always felt that he did, deeply and desperately, despite himself, only at the time it seemed easier to just say yes, just like it seemed easier to say yes to Carlos after that first time that had been his own in-retrospect-really-stupid idea. Carlos drunk that time, even more so than usual, and Paul sober for once, so there went that excuse. But he was smiling so sweetly and _Yes, Carlos, do whatever you want, please just don't stop._ Yes Carlos, you can fuck me here, and here, and even here if you want I don't care. No, fuck I don't think I want to fuck you back, even though I know you were only asking, because that would require a certain amount of non-passivity that I'm unable to give right now.

And Carlos's face turning stone cold and hard and yet another argument and another chance for Daniel to shake his head and go, "Paul, Paul. You worry me," and brush his fingers across Paul's forehead as if they were the type of guys that touched a lot and had it mean nothing except for how much they cared for one another.

But Paul flinched away, before he could stop himself, and Daniel never did it again, only sent Sam to talk to Carlos, them standing close to each other and Carlos shaking his head, ever so slightly. Every expression on his face insight into his thoughts, and he'd stared, briefly, at Paul before paling a little and turning away. In the end, Sam just clapped his hand on the back of Carlos's neck and walked away.

Not a reprimand then, just a "What, Carlos, tell me?" But Carlos mumbled and was unusually reticent, which led Paul to snap churlishly, "I fucking hate you," and Carlos, for once, didn't have a witty comeback, which left Paul desperate and scared and he said, just blurted out, "I hate Europe," and Carlos said miserably, "Yeah I know."

 

***

 

_Will you show me something that nobody else has seen?_

 

This was around the time then, that Paul started to disappear. And sometimes, months later, even years, some reporter would talk about Europe and Paul would make up some half-truth or lie through his teeth depending on his mood, and also because it was a long time ago and because of that he could tell himself that it was over.

But that day, wandering in the snow, lost and tired and wanting nothing more but to go home, and he hadn't even noticed because he was bundled up in clothing, but when he finally made it back to the bus, Carlos started and almost screamed and Paul snapped, "What the fuck, Carlos, I'm not in the mood, okay?" But then Carlos had started laughing, hysterically, Paul thought, only when Carlos brought him to the mirror Paul felt like doing the same, only he didn't because Carlos was there.

"Oh," he said instead, at the face in the mirror that wasn't there. Hat, snow sticking and melting, seemingly in thin air, and nothing else. Behind him, _through_ him, the bathroom door, cheerfully oblivious, and Carlos, poking at him with an experimental finger.

"Stop it," Paul said, and Carlos muttered, "Sorry," under his breath, but he wasn't, and they both knew he wasn't. But then Paul blinked some more, and the more he blinked the more he could see his face. "See," he told Carlos, squinting at his rapidly re-appearing face. "I'm coming back." "Yeah," Carlos said, "I guess you are."

It wasn't that they decided not to tell anyone, it was just that a) no-one would believe them and b) they both hoped it was a fluke, or someone had slipped them, somehow, the same wrong drug. But then the next time it happened, they were all having lunch together and Daniel dropped his fork and said, "Paul, you're kind of. Not there." And Sam just looked up from his salad and said, "Whoa," and that's how everyone found out.

"Does it hurt," Carlos asked, because they were fucking regularly now, and because of that he felt that he had the liberty to ask inappropriate, annoying questions. And be liberally inappropriate and annoying. Paul sighed often, and tolerated the questions, and mostly tried to keep Carlos occupied with doing the other things he felt they should be doing, and Carlos mostly complied.

Once, and only once, he brought up Jenny and Abby, but Carlos said firmly: On the road it doesn't count. Only it had _always_ counted to Paul, and he'd use the excuse that it was because he turned invisible sometimes and that kind of did strange things to people, but even then that would've only worked if he hadn't done it that first time _before_ he started to disappear.

_Pop quiz: What would be the most unusual sexual encounter you've had? Would it be:_

(a) that time that hot Mediterranean teacher for some scary, exhilarating reason, decided to let you put your filthy teenaged hand up her thigh and in her panties, right when your parents were in the next room for a parent-teacher conference.  
(b) that time when you and your girlfriend decided that you would, indeed, attempt to join the mile-high-club, only to have it be hot and uncomfortable and not mile-high at all, at least not in terms of risk to reward.  
(c) that time that, when fucking your bandmate and not-boyfriend at _all_, you kind of disappeared and since _his_ eyes were closed and he couldn't know, you could watch him inside of you, watch him fucking air, except the angle was all wrong and of course you were there.

_This is a concept, yeah._

Carlos also tried to talk to him, about dead philosophers that couldn't help him, and about books that couldn't help him, but Paul just shook his head mutely and said, until Carlos finally just stopped trying, "Shut up, Cee. Shut up, _Cee_." And he was Cee now, not Carlos, not Carl, certainly not D, Cee for _can't you see how much I'm trying to help you here_ and Cee for _I know everything except for maybe this_ and Cee for _despite what a jerk I am, I'm always going to be here for you_. See?

He ended up getting dragged to a club once, in a city that Carlos claimed "had an actual club scene, would you believe it?", his reasoning being that "everyone'll be too high to remember if anything happens to you. Which isn't to say anything will, but just to reassure-" but Paul cut him off in his surely rehearsed speech by waving his hand and muttering, "Yeah yeah, why not?" Because why not, really? And Carlos smiled, and they went, and he kept flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb, and Carlos kept feeding him drugs and alcohol and no-one noticed except for one exceedingly drunk girl who stumbled into him, wrapped her arm around his waist to gaze up and go wonderingly, "You're not here." After that she was dragged away, possibly by her boyfriend, and Carlos leaned in and echoed laughingly in Paul's ear, "You're not here."

Later, in the cab, while Carlos was going down on him, they finally managed to alarm the cab driver when Paul disappeared completely; his initial response when they first started going at it was a resigned, "Just try not to mess the seats up too much," to which Carlos had grimaced and mumbled, "A little too late for that, I think." Paul snickered and shifted around in the grimy leather while Carlos groped under his shirt. But then he was gone, and in between him lazily watching Carlos, not caring that he was wrapping his lips around air, he watched the cab-driver's eyes widen and watched him start cursing under his breath, "this isn't happening," over and over again, and Paul giggled, and bared his invisible teeth, and came.

The driver declined to accept their money once they'd reached the hotel, and instead he sped off, still muttering under his breath. "That was fun," Carlos said. "We should do it again." Paul only harrumped and yawned sleepily.

But this is where the sucky part came in: He never learnt how to control it. It also never became permanent. He was never able to follow people around and eavesdrop on their conversation, never knew when and where it was going to happen. Never onstage though, and that was the one thing he was grateful for. But everywhere else, and it was strange and uncomfortable and terrifying and this when he started spending all his time in his bunk or in the hotel, alone and watching himself blink in and out of existence.

"One moment I'm here, the next I'm not. Isn't that something?" he told Daniel, who nodded wearily and hugged him, and whispered in his ear, "I'm so sorry, Paul." But then he started, when Paul whispered back, "Don't be, it's okay," and he sighed.

Somewhere between Spain and France, Paul stopped letting Carlos fuck him. Partly because he was tired of it, and also because Carlos had always been too much too fast too soon, and Paul had always been exactly the opposite. Not that he told Carlos this, just said something about professionalism and band conflict, and Carlos just stood there throughout the entire conversation, arms crossed and face carved out of stone. Eyes hidden behind his stupid sunglasses, and Paul wanted to rip them off his face, but he guessed it was never too soon to refrain from invading the personal space of the-guy-he-was-about-to-stop-fucking. But his fingers itched and his mouth was dry, and he was this close but then Carlos just shrugged and walked away, finally, and Paul could breathe.

He passed out, later, on the steps of the bus, after seeing Carlos, recovering so _fast_, sneak off with another young thing called Anna. Because they were all named Anna, or so he told a mildly uncomfortable Daniel later, when Daniel raised an eyebrow in Paul's direction in regards to Carlos suddenly returning to the groupies-for-rent market. And Daniel just said, "You guys never even liked each other that much," but it was kind of sad and soft and Paul didn't know how to respond so he just turned away.

This was also around the time that Paul stopped disappearing. Sam just said one day, "Hey, you're no longer-"

"Yeah," Paul said, "Yeah. Guess I'm all better now, huh?" and Carlos looked up from where he was huddled on the couch with a girl, and scowled.


End file.
